Archive for January 2008

Arie Schans, head coach of the Namibian National Team has hit hard at his players, describing them as a group of school boys playing with professional players, hence the humiliating defeat suffered at the hands of Morocco.

Namibia were beaten 5-1 by Morocco in the second game of Group A of the 26th Africa Cup of Nations at the Ohene Djan Stadium in Accra on Monday.

“I’m disappointed at the behaviour of my players and never expected them to play the way they did, especially in the first five minutes of the game”.

Speaking at a post match conference, coach Schans said his boys played contrary to his instructions and that is why they conceded two quick goals in the first five minutes of the game.

“I agree that my players do not have enough international exposure but that should not be used to justify their disappointing performance.

“Their performance is unacceptable especially at an international level like this”. The Dutchman stated.

The coach however said that the humiliating defeat would toughen his boys up for future assignments, since their mission in Ghana was to gain international exposure.

According to coach Schans, the primary motive behind their participation in the competition was to make an impact and to prepare the boys for the qualifying series of the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations and World Cup in Angola and South Africa respectively.

“I’m sure my team would be well prepared for these major tournaments after Ghana 2008”.

Coach Schans said they would visit the drawing board to re-strategise for the next game against Ghana on Thursday at the Ohene Djan Stadium in Accra.

Henri Michel of Morocco expressed satisfaction with the performance of his team, adding that they would approach all matches with similar attitude.

“We are not favourites in the competition and that is why we would take each match at a time to reach our goal in the competition”.

If Metal Rock is your thing then head to Sidi Kacem on February 23.January 22, 2008 – The Sidi Rock festival is follow up to a 2005 initiative by BERBER Badr – a collaboration between the bands: Anaconda, Black Wolves, Imperium, Metal Inc. and Mercy Killing. The event in 2005 was described as only being moderately successful, but this has not stopped Maison d’Art animé, Badr and CHBIHI Amine getting together a second edition of the festival to showcase young talent and feed an audience they describe as “a public thirsty for creativity and originality.”

The organisers say that “despite the many obstacles and drawbacks that represents such a consecration, organizers have taken action to advance the Moroccan Rock/Metal scene offering a chance for young people to develop this kind of music.” The event will take place in the province of Sidi Kacem on February 23, 2008 in Dar Echabab; Listed to perform are eight groups from different Moroccan regions: DESPOTISM (Casablanca), ATMOSPHEAR (Rabat), DAMNED CREATION (Sidi Kassem), KREMATORIUM (Kenitra), FLOOD OF HATE (Kenitra), EPHEMERAL PROMISE (Rabat), SAKADOYA (Settat) and HAMMER HEAD (Kenitra).

As their press release says: “All hope and expect a support, be it local authorities or organims and media, in order to devote them a humble place in the Moroccan music scene.We invite you to come and live for many memorable moments that will forever mark our history.”

Fourteen people were killed when a two-storey residential building under construction collapsed in Morocco’s northwestern city of Khenitra, government officials said on Thursday.Twenty six people were injured in Wednesday’s collapse and it was not known how many people might still be trapped beneath the rubble.

The number of people on site at the time of the collapse was unclear.

Authorities were investigating the cause of the accident in Khenitra which lies 40 km (25 miles) north of Rabat.

Interior Minister Chakib Benmoussa, who visited the scene along with other senior officials, vowed to identify and punish officials who might be responsible for the collapse.

Rabat, Morocco – Nine people were killed here Friday and 10 others wounde d, five of them seriously, in a road accident in the Khémisset region, some 70 k i lometres away, an official source told PANA Thursday.The accident took place when a lorry collided head-on with a public transport ve hicle while negotiating a corner, the source said.

Nine people were earlier killed on new year’s day in two separate road accidents while 13 died in an accident between the cities of Tétouan and Chefchaouen on 1 9 December.

According to the Ministry of Equipment and Transport, road accidents accounted f or the death of 3,622 Moroccans in 2006, and this is 4.17 per cent higher than t h e figure for 2005.

A young moroccan man cut off his penis with knife in public because his girl friend did not come to spend the night with him…The man was hurried to the nearest hospital but the doctors’ attempt to re-attach the organ failed….

Morocco is set to create special centers to cure women batterers and provide them with proper treatment, Moroccan Minister of Social Development, Family and Solidarity, Nouzha Skalli, said on Wednesday. Speaking at the House of Representatives’ question time on violence against women, Ms. Skalli noted that women batterers are people who need a psychological treatment to help correct their behavior.

Violence against women does not only have a heavy cost in terms of health and economy but a negative impact on children and on the family as well, she went on, recalling that since the launch of a free crisis hotline for women, some 17,511 acts of violence against women were documented by crisis centers as of January 2007. These acts were perpetrated by 10,053 women batterers, 78.8 of whom are husbands, the minister added, noting that some 10,053 violence-related complaints have also been made, with an average of 838 complaints a month.

Touching on the legal provisions in favor of women that are meant to uproot violence, Ms. Skalli said a bill is being prepared to toughen these provisions and curb violence against women. Over the past years, Morocco has adopted a set of measures to slash forms of violence against women, launched crisis centers for battered women and conducted awareness campaigns. The latest campaign was launched on November 30 to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Dubbed the fifth National Campaign to eliminate violence against women, it revolved around “Mobilizing Youths to fight Violence against Women”.

SALE, Morocco (Reuters) – A Moroccan court convicted 50 radical Islamists on Friday of plotting bombings and robberies and jailed them for up to 25 years, court officials and lawyers said.

They were members of the Ansar el Mehdi “Mehdi Partisans” group, and shortly after they were rounded up in 2006 the authorities seized explosives and laboratory equipment.

The government said the group planned to declare ‘holy war’ in northeast Morocco, had recruited members of the police and the military and planned to rob banks and convoys and use the money to buy more explosives.

Their leader, Hassan Khattab, was jailed for 25 years and the 49 others were sentenced to between two and 20 years in prison, including four women who got five-year jail terms.

All the defendants pleaded not guilty. One man who stood trial with the others was acquitted.

Khattab smiled to display his indifference as the judge read out the sentences.

“We did nothing to get such sentences. We left our children alone and hungry,” said Abdesalam Debibeh, who was sentenced to eight years in prison.

The court found the defendants guilty of plotting to bomb government buildings and tourism landmarks in Casablanca and other cities and belonging to an illegal group, collecting money to fund terrorism and undermining state security and public order.

During the trial Khattab broke his silence only to deny the charges against him, attack the Moroccan government as an “apostate dictatorship” and assail its ally, the United States.

“I say to (U.S. President) Bush ‘we are coming to attack you,'” he said. “One day we will manage to wipe you out.”

Moroccan police have broken up more than 50 cells and arrested some 3,000 people since 2003, when suicide bombings killed 45 people in Casablanca.

ON ALERT

Morocco and the neighbouring Maghreb countries have been on alert for attacks since Al Qaeda’s North Africa wing stepped up suicide bombings and other attackss last year.

They fear a broad upsurge in violence in the region after Al Qaeda’s Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb said it wanted to link up radical groups in the region and use it as a base for bombings of European targets.

Algeria has suffered a series of deadly bombings since early last year, including a December 11 attack that killed 37 people.

In Morocco, six Islamists blew themselves up in Casablanca last year, killing one other person.

On Friday, the Dakar Rally that goes through Morocco and Mauritania was cancelled for the first time in its 30-year history after threats from what organisers called “terrorist organisations”.

In Mauritania, three attackers suspected of links to Al Qaeda gunned down four French tourists and wounded a fifth on Christmas Eve.

Gunmen killed three soldiers three days later in a remote area in northern Mauritania, near the border with Algeria and Morocco’s disputed Western Sahara territory.

On September 11th, 2002, a 15-year old Moroccan-American girl found herself inside the PATH train station — set beneath the World Trade Center — and just as United Airlines flight 175 crashed into the south tower and exploded. Now, 6 years later, Army Specialist Lamia Lahlou, shares her remarkable story about how she turned tragedy into a commitment to serve her county.

Some Moroccan blogs have recently been hacked by a group of Moroccan hackers Ur@niµm.

Almoudarisse.canalblog.com has been hacked because they published an article about the newly-appointed Minister of culture,Touria Jabrane. The blogger,who is a teacher, WAS WARNED TO LEAVE MOROCCAN MINISTERS ALONE …..

Rabat, Jan. 1 – King Mohammed VI of Morocco expressed hope that 2008 will be a year of peace, security, solidarity, and humanism in the world.

In congratulation messages addressed to world leaders on the occasion, the king said 2007 was quite an eventful year with major conflicts of all kinds, hoping that “our common human aspirations will materialize in the new year.” “We look forward to embracing a world where values of love, concord, tolerance, harmonious co-existence, and fertile synergies among different cultures, religions, and civilizations prevail,” the monarch added.

The sovereign also received congratulations messages from World leaders on the same occasion, in which they expressed best wishes of good health, progress, as well as prosperity of the people of Morocco.

The wave of illegal African immigration to Spain’s Canary Islands continued into 2008 as two boats carrying 68 migrants arrived Tuesday on the archipelago off the coast of Morocco, officials said.

A cayuco, or wooden fishing boat, carrying 40 people, including two minors, arrived on Tenerife, the largest of the seven islands that make up the archipelago, at around 3:30 am (0230 GMT), a marime rescue official said.

It was towed by a maritime rescue services ship to the port of Los Cristianos after being spotted in the waters off the island, he said.

A second ship with 28 people on board arrived on the island of Lanzarote some five hours later, an official said. It was towed by a police patrol boat to Arrecife, the capital of the Canary Islands.

During the first 11 months of 2007, a total of 17,038 illegal immigrants arrived in Spain on 704 boats, the Europa Press news agency reported Tuesday citing official government figures. Most arrived on the Canary Islands.

By comparison during the same period of 2006 a total of 37,647 clandestine migrants arrived in Spain on 1,111 boats, the agency said.

The government credits the fall in the number of arrivals to stepped up patrols of the coast.

Authorities fear many of the thousands of Africans who make the perilous journey towards Spanish soil each year die of thirst or exposure on the risky voyages but there is no way of knowing exactly how many have died.

The International Coalition for Responsible and Respectful Tourism published a report early this month on the resurgence of Morocco’s sex tourism industry, uncovering numerous causes of the phenomenon and proposing solutions.

The report, compiled by coalition goodwill ambassador Khalid Semmouni, indicates close links between sex tourism, globalisation and the opening of borders, adding that people are attracted by what they perceived as exotic.

Poverty and exclusion are also among the causes, and have contributed to the prevalence of prostitution in Morocco.

Other causes cited by the report include the violation of children’s socio-economic rights; a lack of public education on sex and human rights, especially for children; the disintegration of family structures; domestic abuse and a lack of responsibility on the part of schools.

The report also mentioned the lenience of Morocco’s legislation on child rape and the lack of a national action plan to protect children from violence.

It states that sex tourism is in violation of existing international agreements which Morocco has ratified, namely the 1949 Convention against the sexual exploitation of women, CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women) and the Convention on Child Rights.

The report also points to legal gaps and loopholes and proposes that the Penal Code be strengthened to more effectively counter the sexual abuse of women and children.

The solutions put forward include the adoption of adapted legislation to bolster children’s protections, the use of media to inform the public and alert families to the dangers of prostitution and the sex trade’s impact on society, and also the organisation of trainings for members of the judiciary to guarantee faster responses to young people’s needs.

Semmouni told Magharebia that “this problem also exists in other Arab countries, but it is much more severe in Morocco, since this country is open to the West and also due to its geographical position.” Semmouni proposed that all tourists found guilty of paedophilia in Morocco should be banned from returning. He also advocated the creation of a vice squad to monitor tourist activity from a distance and intervene where necessary.

Najat Anwar, president of the NGO “Don’t Touch My Child”, told Magharebia: “We need to establish a partnership with international NGOs and authorities such as ECPAT and INTERPOL to detect, condemn and prevent harm to Moroccan children by criminal tourists who travel to our country to satisfy their desires.” She added that “at the national level, our association has found that foreign paedophiles no longer enjoy the ‘tourist immunity’ they once had, and are just as liable to be punished as Moroccan paedophiles.”

Despite far-reaching government efforts, including the creation of tourism police in Marrakesh in 1994 and the conviction of over 40 tourists for paedophilia and prostitution offences since 2001, human rights activists in the country insist that Morocco still has a long way to go to eradicate the problem.